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How to remove empty lines in Word?

Author Sun Last modified

When you download documents from the web, they often contain too many empty lines (manual line breaks), which can make the document look cluttered. Removing these empty lines manually can be time-consuming and tedious. Fortunately, there are easier ways to remove all empty lines from your document.

In this tutorial, we will list three effective methods to remove all empty lines from the entire document or a selection within the document:

Remove all empty lines with the Find and Replace option

Remove all empty lines with Kutools for Word

Remove all empty lines with VBA

Remove all empty lines with the Find and Replace option

The Find and Replace function in Word is commonly used to remove all empty lines, which are referred to as Manual Line Breaks in the Find What field.

  1. Click Replace on the Home tab. Alternatively, you can use the shortcut keys Ctrl + H.

    Replace button on the ribbon

  2. In the popping Find and Replace dialog box, click the More >> button to show more options. Then, place the cursor in the Find What field and select Manual Line Break from the Special drop-down menu.

    Manual Line Break option on the Special pull-down menu

  3. A "^l" character will appear in the Find What field. Click Replace All to delete all manual line breaks at once.

    All manual line breaks are deleted

Remove all empty lines with Kutools for Word

While the previous methods require multiple steps, Kutools for Word simplifies the process, allowing you to remove all empty lines with just one click.

Kutools for Word, equipped with AI 🤖, offers over 100 handy features to simplify your tasks.
  1. Apply this utility by clicking Kutools > Parapraphs > Remove All Empty Manual Line Breaks in Selected Ranges.

    Remove Empty Manual Line Breaks option on the Kutools tab on the ribbon

  2. A prompt box will appear asking for confirmation. Click Yes.

    Confirmation dialog

  3. After clicking Yes, all empty lines will be removed from the document.

    Empty lines are removed from the document

Note: If you only want to remove empty lines from a specific selection, select the desired range before applying this feature.

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Remove all empty lines with VBA

Alternatively, you can use a macro to remove all empty lines if you are familiar with VBA code. Follow the instructions below:

  1. Press Alt + F11 to open the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window.
  2. Click Insert > Module, and then copy the following VBA code into the module window: 
    Sub Deleemptylines()
Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
Selection.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting
With Selection.Find
.Text = "^l"
.Replacement.Text = ""
.Forward = True
.Wrap = wdFindContinue
.Format = False
.MatchCase = False
.MatchWholeWord = False
.MatchByte = False
.MatchAllWordForms = False
.MatchSoundsLike = False
.MatchWildcards = False
.MatchFuzzy = False
End With
Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
End Sub
  3. Click the Run Sub button Run button to execute the code. All manual line breaks will be removed from the document.

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